Harro

So, blogging is totally overrated. If I had something great to write about, I'd write about it. But seeing as I don't, I'll just leave you with a picture of me napping with a temporary companion, who I picked up in the middle of the road a month ago. He was tiny, sick, covered in fleas and shivering, but now he's really well and craves attention every moment I'm at home. He's adorable, but we can't keep him!

It's over.

It's really over. A very complicated and rather rushed ending to the series, but an ending. I feel like I've run a marathon tonight; there was just too much information for my sleep-deprived mind the last 2 hours.

Finished this book in: 6 hours

Thanks, Harry, for a great ten years.

Fishies and summer

Boy is it HOT right now. Public schools here have no A/C, so you can imagine the way I look after 6 periods of teaching every day.
Anyhow, nothing really new to report... My life has become somewhat of a monotony recently. I feel like all I do is work, cook, and sleep. Tomorrow I have a footsal tournament in Ise, so that'll be a nice change of pace. Why do weekends just fly by, when the weekdays refuse to go by any faster than a crawl?
Here is me tonight, after a welcome party for some people from Camas, Washington. Summer is yukata season, but this is probably the only time I'll wear one this year. This green yukata was a present from the vice mayor of the former Seiwa Village (now Taki) my first month in Japan. I have been unsuccessful at learning the art of putting on a kimono, so one of my Japanese friends and I asked a JET friend, Megan, to do it for us. I thought it was so cool that she could do that which so many Japanese people cannot.
Our fish tank is sporting a whole new family of fish, after the first set of goldfish died. Apparently the festival goldfish are really sickly and don't last long. We now have a bunch of tiny tropical fish, and two little freswater shrimp. The shrimps are so funny-- they use their zillion legs to shovel food into their mouths, climb on the plants, and zoom around the tank (yeah, they swim and everything!). I swear they are more interesting than the fish.

New friends

I've been feeling really down this past week for several reasons, so to cheer myself up, I got some fish. My mother in law and I went to a local festival today and did kingyo-sukui, which literally means, ''fish-scooping''. It is a traditional booth at a Japanese festival where you buy a little paper-covered ring with a handle and scoop goldfish into a bowl before the paper melts. It's quite difficult, but mom in law and I got several, three of which I took home. All three are looking very healthy and happy in their new home, and their presence is really calming for me. Part two of my campaign of self-indulgence is an electric piano being sent my way tomorrow. I hope a dose of music back into my life will make me feel better. It definitely has many times in the past.